Childish Dreams
by Amulet Misty
Summary: Science VS Spirits. Dreams VS Reality. Somehow, the lines between the two can be blurred and something new can be found. Wishfulshipping. One-Shot.


**A/N: Tadaa! Yes. After being a Wishfulshipper after only after finding out their names and basic character from bulbapedia it has taken me at least a year to actually write a Wishfulshipping fanfic. I am not worthy.**

**Dedication: My Wishfulshipping family at the serebii forum. May our cracky Wishful live on forever. Also to my Wishful friends on Youtube, let's keep amving Wishfully!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. (Gotta catch em all~, gotta catch em all POKEMON!)**

* * *

Childish Dreams

"Finally!" Iris cried as she, Ash and Cilan arrived at the Pokemon Centre. The three of them were soaking wet from the rain that suddenly dropped down on them while they were on the way to Icirrus City. It had been a beautiful, sunny day up until Iris had sensed that it would rain in the middle of lunch. She'd have to work on her sixth sense more; it wasn't all that great that she could only predict when it would rain a few seconds before it actually came pouring down.

Still, her warning would have saved them having to pack up the table if it weren't for a certain green-haired connoisseur who _refused_ to believe her. He simply waved it off.

"Oh my, the weather outside is dreadful," said a sympathetic Nurse Joy, handing them a towel each.

"Yeah," Ash agreed placing his towel over his head. "It's a good thing the Pokemon Centre was really close to where we were eating."

The tallest of the three nodded. "It's a good thing too that I had my Town Map, or we wouldn't have known that there was a Pokemon Centre in such an obscure place as this."

Iris frowned. Was that just her imagination or did Cilan just smirk at her? It only lasted a small moment, but Iris definitely saw it. _Oh, so he's acting all high and mighty just because his stupid gadget got us here. _

Nurse Joy smiled. "We have lots of trainers pass through this part of the forest since they all want to challenge the Icirrus gym."

"The Icirrus gym leader better look out, since he's going to have Ash Ketchum to battle!" Ash said confidently, exchanging a determined look with Pikachu.

"Don't get all cocky just because your Tepig evolved to a Pignite," Iris warned. "Whoever the gym leader for Icirrus is, he or she is probably really strong."

"Ash does have an advantage, though, if he used Pignite since –"

"Anyway, you should probably get some training done," she said, cutting Cilan off. She was still annoyed that he didn't listen to her earlier. She had _proved_ that her sixth sense worked before. "It never hurts to train before a gym battle."

"Right!" Ash started rushing to the door with the sign 'Training Facilities' hanging above it. Just as he was about to turn the doorknob moment he sneezed. "Er, but first I think I'm going to have a shower and let my clothes dry out."

Cilan and Iris exchanged their usual 'that's Ash for you' smile. Iris then remembered she was still mad at Cilan and crossed her arms. "I'm going to have a shower too, see you later."

Without another look at Cilan she marched off to the changing rooms.

xxxxx

Cilan adjusted his bow tie which now, like the rest of his clothes, was completely dry. He was in the room that Nurse Joy had offered them to stay in. It looked like they'd have to stay the night there. The bed creaked as Cilan sat on it, sighing and looking out of the small window that occupied the room. It didn't look like the rain was going to stop anytime soon. The room was quiet, other than the faint sound of the rain that could be heard through the closed windows. He knew Ash had gone off to the training centre but he wondered where Iris could have gone. Surely her shower hadn't taken _that _long and usually she would come to the room while Ash trained alone.

Maybe she was avoiding him.

No, no, no. Iris wouldn't do _that_. Sure they'd had arguments before but Iris had never avoided him.

She did seem a little more put off than usual though.

...

…

…

Cilan sprung to his feet clutching his head in dismay.

Iris was avoiding at him. She was definitely avoiding at him. This was definitely not the taste he expected to have today; it was too spicy and bitter. What did he do to make her mad? Okay, maybe he did upset her a _tiny_ bit when he said he didn't believe that her sixth sense really worked. But he had explained it to her! There was no _proof_ that there was such thing as a sixth sense. The fact that it did end up raining was pure coincidence after all. And besides, she insulted his science. The wonderful, curious taste of discovery and knowledge and – he should really go find her.

xxxxx

As it turned out, Iris had been for once watching Ash's training while not actually battling him. Ash had been pitting Pikachu again Scraggy, which in Cilan's mind was not a very fair taste as Pikachu did not hold back, but he had always had an appreciation Ash's unique tactics. His other companion had been sitting on the bench beside the battle field. Axew was standing at the edge of the battle-field, cheering on his best-friend.

The green-haired teen walked over to Iris and sat down next to her. She didn't make any indication that she noticed his presence. Either she was too absorbed in watching the battle or she was purposefully ignoring him.

He cleared his throat to get her attention.

She still did not show any sign that she knew he was there.

Cilan frowned. _She's actually ignoring me! _He decided to try another tactic.

"Iris, the silent treatment is not a very mature taste," he remarked. Iris's head immediately snapped towards him and she glared at him.

Success! Or not. He certainly got her attention but not exactly in the best way.

"What do you know?"

Cilan nearly went on to elaborate on exactly what he knew, including knowledge about being a Fishing Connoisseur and a Metro Connoisseur but decided that this wasn't the greatest idea. "Actually, Iris, I came here to apologise."

Iris blinked in surprise. "You did?"

He nodded. "It wasn't in good taste for me to ignore what you were saying earlier today."

Iris' eyes grew wide.

"We might have different opinions but I should respect yours more, however much I disagree with them."

Her eyes grew even wider.

"As my travelling companion I think we should set our differences aside and forget this whole incident. So Iris, I'm sorry."

At this point Iris started smiling and also apologised for being so rash. Or, that's what Cilan expected her to do. Instead she stood up and looked even angrier than she had been before.

"That was the worst apology I have ever heard in my entire life Cilan!"

Cilan did a double-take. "W-what? What do you mean?"

"Forget it! You're such a kid!" With an irritated huff she stormed away from him.

He watched her retreating figure in shock. What just happened? There was nothing wrong with the ingredients in his apology! _None at all. _Certainly he thought that the whole thing should have been settled with that. Instead he was rewarded with her trademark 'kid' phrase.

What was wrong with what he said?

xxxxx

Iris ran out of the Pokémon Centre, not caring that the rain had drenched her clothes with water instantly. She just needed to get out of there, she felt like she might suffocate if she stayed. She started climbing a tall tree which was slippery and hard to grip but being practiced at it she managed to get to the top without falling down halfway. It was only then that she realised that she had forgotten Axew back in the Pokemon Centre.

She must be more bothered with Cilan's words than she thought; she rarely left Axew alone anywhere.

Sighing, she leaned against the strong bark of the tree, the leaves sheltering her from most of the rain.

Why did she react like that anyway? It wasn't like Cilan insulted her in anyway. _Travelling companion. _No, she felt slightly hurt. After all they'd been through together couldn't he say sorry with at least calling her his friend. Travelling companion sounded so unfamiliar. As if they were strangers or something! They weren't strangers, she knew a lot about Cilan, after all he was always constantly (and might she add, painfully) going on about all his interest. He seemed to be knowledgeable in nearly every situation they had come across so far. Sometimes Iris felt jealous of Cilan; even though she always called Ash a kid she didn't really know much more than he did compared what Cilan knew. Maybe it was just because Cilan was older than her. How old was Cilan anyway? It bugged her that she didn't know that basic fact.

She had also wondered about Cilan's parents from time to time. Ash openly talked about his mum, but Cilan never told them anything about his parents, and Iris didn't see any of them at the gym.

Did Cilan even have parents? It seemed like he made the decision to travel with Ash all on his own and the only people he said he consulted were his brothers.

As for Iris, she left because the village elder had told her to and she told Cilan and Ash all about it. Although, Iris hadn't talked about her parents either. Maybe Cilan was just like her; he wasn't comfortable with talking about his parents.

Another thing that she wanted to know was why he was scared of purloin. Iris thought it was really cute how they had purple fur and their ears were adorable. She'd really have to ask Cilan sometime.

Ask Cilan...that was a good idea. She'd never know anything more about him if she just sulked here and avoided him. She stood up, supporting herself with her right hand. She moved slightly to her left to get a better place to jump to when she lost her footing.

Before she could register what was happening, she felt herself fall through the air. She shut her eyes waiting for the impact, but she lost consciousness before she could hit the ground.

xxxxx

She didn't know how long it was since she fell until she started drifting back into consciousness. Everything felt heavy, but to her surprise she didn't feel any pain anywhere. Even the ground where she was lying didn't feel hard. It didn't feel wet either. She tried moving her hand and felt the ground. It was soft; too soft for ground with even the softest of grass. She must be on a bed now. Maybe she was on a hospital bed and she was hurt so badly that she couldn't feel anything.

She started opening her eyes, trying to sit herself up at the same time. Nothing ached when she moved; she guessed she wasn't hurt at all.

Her eyes wandered to a window that let in a faint light from the moon. It must have been at least a few hours since she fell, since the rain had stopped and the moon was up already.

She felt a sudden movement near her right hand and she turned her head to see what it was.

"Cilan," she whispered with a sharp intake of breath.

He didn't respond to her. He was leaning his head against folded hands on the bed, his face turned away from Iris. She leaned over to see that his eyes were closed and she noticed that he was breathing heavily. Had he been staying here all this time for her? She hoped she hadn't worried him too much.

He didn't look concerned about anything at the moment, though. She'd say he looked quite peaceful. It was a change for her to see Cilan so quiet, not going on about all his professions. His green hair reflected the moon's light. She reached out and gently stroked his hair. She nearly giggled as she realised that his hair actually felt a little bit like soft grass besides looking like it.

The head under hand moved slightly. "Iris?"

She immediately pulled her hand back, as Cilan raised his head fully to look at her. When he saw her face he smiled and stood up, placing his hands behind his back. "How are you feeling?"

"A bit drowsy but I'm okay." She patted the area where his head lay. "Your knees must be killing you from bending down in that position. Sit down!"

Cilan chuckled before sitting down on the bed, his body turned slightly to the right so that he could face Iris.

"What happened?" Iris questioned. "I thought I would at least get a broken leg or arm from that fall but I don't think I've been injured at all."

"After you…shouted at me I watched Ash train for a while. I figured you needed some space from me. I didn't feel right though, leaving things like that so I went to go find you. Nurse Joy said she saw you running towards the entrance so I went out and you had just slipped. I managed to run and catch you in time, but you had fainted. Nurse Joy came running outside, after seeing the whole thing and got you changed and made sure you were try."

Her clothes _had _changed. She was wearing her night-time clothes and her hair was definitely dry now. She realised her hair was down.

"If I came any later though," Cilan continued, his voice growing grim. "You would have been really hurt."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone out in such terrible weather. I climbed a tree while it was raining as well. I don't know what I was thinking." Iris looked down, ashamed of herself. "And I'm sorry for shouting at you. I really had no reason to do it."

She felt Cilan's hand cover hers. "It's alright. I'm sure you did have a reason." He gave a small laugh. "I'd be happier if you'd tell me what it was though."

Her cheeks grew warm. "It's embarrassing – and childish."

"It's alright, you can just tell me. I'm sure your flavour of reason isn't too bad and I promise I won't laugh." She looked at him again; his eyes showed that he was being sincere, warm and kind as always.

Feeling encouraged Iris told him. "When you were saying sorry to me, you called me your travelling companion."

Cilan's expression showed confusion. "What about it?"

"W-well, I was angry…because…you know…" Iris's voice became quieter and quieter as she thought about how much of a kid she sounded like. "I thought you could at least call me your friend." With her last word barely above a whisper, she waited for his reaction.

Although his signs displayed no signs of amusement, he said, "I kind of wish I didn't make that promise."

"Cilan!" Iris removed her hand from Cilan's hold and crossed her arms. "It's not funny!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said, although now he was smiling. "But Iris, we _are_ friends. I just happened to use the words travelling companions at the time. It wasn't meant to say that we weren't friends."

"O-oh," was all Iris could say, as it did make sense. Feeling even more embarrassed than she had been before, she averted her gaze from him. She then noticed a small bump at the foot of her bed. Raising her blanket over her head she could see what it was. "Axew!"

She took her pokémon into her arms, hugging him even though he was still asleep.

"Axew was in here the whole time with me since when Nurse Joy brought you here. Ash was here too but I told him he could go to bed. We were all really worried about you."

Even though she probably shouldn't be happy she smiled at the thought that they cared so much about her.

She placed Axew on the spot next to her head on her left. "Thanks for worrying Cilan. You guys really are my friends."

Cilan's green eyes brightened. "That just brought a thought to me."

"What is it?" she asked, as Cilan looked thoughtful.

"You said just now that I could 'at least' call us friends. Why at least?"

Iris stared blankly at him. Why at least? "Because…I – I don't know! Same reason you said 'travelling companion' I guess. It just happened."

Cilan's eyes stared down directly at hers. "Are you sure?"

"No! I mean yes. I mean…" Cilan was making her feel really strange now. She felt like her heartbeat had grown faster and faster for as long as he was staring at her. Had his eyes always been such a mesmerising shade of green?

He took her hands in his again and her cheeks started to flush. His hands were really warm…"Iris, do you feel anything now? Anything strange?"

What? How did he know? "No, nothing with my sixth sense," she said quickly. "Actually…it might be something to do with that. Maybe I sense a spirit." That would explain it, there must be some kind of spirit that entered the room.

"I don't think so," he said softly. "We know there's no such thing as spirits."

"I can feel it though! We both know that I can sense something so don't be a kid and just – "

Cilan kissed her, cutting off her last words. It was just a small brush of their lips but when he pulled back Iris felt her face turn completely red. "You - did you just -?" She was at a loss for words.

"Only a kid would react like that to a small kiss," he said in a pleasant voice as if this was normal.

"B-but that was..." Her heart was beating so hard and her face was so warm… what was this?

Cilan smiled warmly at her. "Don't think too hard about it." He got up and walked to the door. "Goodnight Iris, sweet dreams."

He left, just like that.

Iris would have gone after him. She would have demanded an explanation for his actions, but after the whole falling off a tree business and whatever that just happened was, she didn't have it in her.

She lay back in bed and tried to go sleep.

The kiss was another thing to add to the list of things she really needed to ask Cilan about.

Xxxxx

Iris stood in the hallway leading to the dining area. Peeking around the corner, she could see Ash and Pikachu already munching away at the mouth-watering breakfast prepared by Cilan. The connoisseur himself was nowhere to be seen. She slowly made her way over to Ash.

Upon seeing his friend, he jumped out of his seat and grinned widely. "Iris! You're okay!"

Pikachu's expression also brightened when he saw Iris. "Pika pi!"

"Yep, good as new!" she said. Axew popped out of her hair and jumped onto the table, immediately eating the poke-food that had already been set out for him.

"Iris," she heard Cilan call from behind her. He walked up to the table and placed a tray of food on it. She stiffened as he turned to look at her. "I was going to bring this to your room."'

"T-thanks," she managed to say, though she still felt very nervous.

Cilan was acting unbelievably normal after the events of the day before. He set her plate for her and for himself and started eating his breakfast. Iris didn't feel so hungry right now.

"What's wrong?" Ash asked, noticing Iris hadn't touched her food.

"Nothing!" she replied immediately. She saw Cilan frown.

"Before I forget…I wanted to apologise for yesterday."

He was bringing up yesterday _here_? In front of Ash and Pikachu? In any case Cilan didn't need to apologise for the kiss, it wasn't like it was bad or anything, er, what Iris meant was she just wanted an explanation.

"It's okay…I just wanted to know why you did it." She turned pink, waiting for his answer.

"Well, I'm not exactly sure what I did."

Iris nearly rolled her eyes, sure he didn't. His face didn't show any sign of sarcasm though, and what he said next sounded very sincere.

"I know that you didn't like my earlier apology for some reason, not sure why, and you just ran off. If my apology had been good enough though, you wouldn't have gone into the rain like that. I hope you can forgive me."

"Huh? I already forgave you after that, remember?" Iris gazed directly at Cilan's eyes, trying to get the message through that she was talking about the kiss and that maybe they should talk about it somewhere without the presence of Ash and the pokémon. As it happened they were all staring between Cilan and Iris.

CIlan looked confused, though. "What do you mean, Iris? You haven't spoken to me since we were watching Ash's training."

"What?" Iris was completely lost now. "But last night, we talked to each other! In the room I was staying at."

He shook his head. "I didn't go into your room after the first hour, Iris. Nurse Joy told us that we needed to leave you alone for a while to let you have some rest. Only Axew could stay with you."

"Yeah, or me, Cilan and Pikachu would've stayed in your room too," Ash added. "Maybe you just dreamt that you talked to Cilan."

"Oh…" That would make a lot of sense. Cilan. Kissing _her_ of all people. What kind of ridiculously childish thought was that? She felt really relieved, since that meant that things wouldn't be awkward between them, since nothing actually happened.

"So what exactly did I do?" Cilan asked her.

"Don't worry about it, it was nothing," she answered with a would-be casual shrug. She felt slightly disappointed that it _had _been a dream. She had to admit that she really like the kiss. A tiny part of her was hoping Cilan had kissed her because he liked – no, stop. This was such an embarrassment; if Cilan ever knew what she had dreamed about and that it was because she may ,admittedly, have a pea-sized crush on him, she would have to go dig a hole for herself and crawl into it. She vowed in her head never to tell anyone about this dream. Ever.

Hoping to get away from Cilan to stop him pressing the subject, she dragged Ash along to go help her wash the dishes in the centre kitchen.

Cilan watched her leave, his head tilted slightly to the right. Axew, who had stayed behind tugged at his sleeve. He looked down at the pokémon who gave him a look that said: "How come you lied to Iris?"

The connoisseur sighed. It was true that Nurse Joy banned the two from going into Iris's room, but the incident weighed so much on his conscious that he just had to make sure she was okay. And _yes _he was fonder of Iris than she probably thought.

What _had _he been thinking, kissing Iris like that the night before? Just because she looked extremely pretty in the moonlight, just because he could _tell _that she had feelings for him, however small and just because she had given him the perfect opportunity to do it didn't mean he should have taken it. He must have been in a daze, because after he actually kissed her his mind exploded with panic which somehow translated to his actions as calm and controlled. He escaped from her room before she made him answer anything. Judging by her actions this morning he had been right in thinking that Iris would not know what to do about the situation.

It was fortunate that both Ash and Pikachu had had a full-dinner and were dead to the world in sleep or the trainer would have told Iris that Cilan had been missing in the middle of the night.

Gazing in the direction Iris left in, he smiled. He didn't really regret it that much; Iris thought it was all a dream and everything would go on as normal. He had to admit, his Movie Connoisseur skills were tested in this case and he'd have to keep it up for the rest of their travels.

Before Cilan could stop himself, he thought, "I wonder if Iris has recurring dreams…I think I'll ask her one day."

* * *

**A/N: And that, my fellow Wishfulshippers, is how Cilan and Iris have actually already kissed offscreen in the anime. You know it's true :3 **

**I need to be more descriptive. Seriously. **

**Oh and I think I made Cilan a bit too sneaky in the end…if Cilan did use a recurring dream excuse Iris would probably find out that it had all been real eventually. Oh well, it'll just have to be a story he tells at their wedding day. (Iris will probably be mad that their first kiss wasn't the one she thought it was.)**

**I'm just rambling now. Thanks for reading this fic, keep the wishfulshipping alive!**

**-Dina (Amulet Misty/SilentStormfall)**


End file.
